A disinherited English baron and a young New York heiress marry and move West to build an agricultural empire in Palm Springs in the 1920s when it was just a budding town on the edge of the Mojave Desert. This is also the story of a woman finding her own personality and strength in the West against a breathtaking desert landscape that changes constantly and shows its deadly side in poisonous snakes, flash floods and sand storms, with dramatic moments of forbidden romance, reversals, treachery, betrayal and, ultimately, triumphs.